Page 2 of The Fantasy League
While wemighthave been forced into friendship by our parents—okay, fine, we were definitely forced—I knew that Mae and I were meant to find each other in this lifetime. Call it soul mates if you want, but despite all of our differences, there was no one in the world that would stand by my side the way she had.
The only thing that made her somewhat unbearable was the fact that she was a five-ten blonde supermodel.
Seriously?Come on.
Would it have killed Mom to have picked a better-looking sperm donor? Sure, sperm donor eleven thousand twenty-three did a pretty decent job if I said so myself, but Idefinitelywasn’t supermodel material by any means.
Nine times out of ten, whenever we told people we were sisters, we were immediately met with tilted heads and squinted eyes.
Assholes. All of them.
“Hello, earth to Scarlett?” Mae waved a hand in front of my zoned-out expression.
“Cut it out.” I swatted her hand away from me.
So maybe I was guilty of having a book boyfriend or twenty, but I refused to be shamed for them. “I am getting laid. Mentally laid… by fictional men,” I said smugly, waggling my brows at her. “And none of my book boyfriends have failed me yet, if you know what I mean.”
“Gross!” Mae squealed loudly, scrunching her face as she stuck her fork right into the center of the cake that I’d just pulled out of the oven. She shoveled a large bite into her mouth, not giving it the chance to cool down first. “I donotneed to know the details of the mental orgasms you’ve received from fictional men. It sounds unsanitary.” Her whole body cringed as she scooped out another giant bite of cake onto her fork and shoveled it into her mouth, barely finished with her first bite.
“Don’t knock it until you try it.” I shot her an overexaggerated wink. “Plus, you know I’ve never been good at dating anyway.” I sighed, twisting the small emerald ring on my middle finger round and round.
Mom had found the ring in a small pawnshop on one of her work trips years ago and brought it back as a gift for my birthday. These days, when I wore it, it felt like a piece of her was there to comfort me when I needed it. “I wouldn’t know where to begin if I tried.”
Growing up, I’d never been the kind of girl who got asked out in high school—or college, for that matter. I had my first real relationship just out of college, if you could even call it that.
We were together for a little less than a year, but it was a long-distance relationship and I could count on one hand the number of times that we saw each other in person.
Since that “relationship” ended almost two years ago, I’d beena bitskeptical of dating. Most people who are nearly a quarter of a century old have an elaborate dating history. I, on the other hand, felt so inexperienced in the realm of dating that the rare dates that I did go on were practically over before they started.
“I know, Scar.” Mae’s voice was more tender than usual as her fork made another dive into the red velvet cake.
“You know…” Mae smirked, perking up from her chair and pointing the cake-filled fork toward me. “You could always ask out Mr. Tight End.” She waggled her eyebrows.
Abel Abbott, the best tight end in the league, lived across the street from Mae and me. And to my dismay, he also happened to be my boss. I didn’t exactly hate the guy, but in the eight months that I’d worked for him, we’d maybe said a hundred words to each other… and that was pushing it.
We had met through a mutual friend of ours, Lea. And I knew it was probably too good to be true when I found out he was looking for a chefandlived right across the street from us, but I was desperate for a job and took it anyway.
Turned out I was right… it was too good to be true.
Because Abel Abbott was the biggest asshole I’d ever met.
My only saving grace was that I only worked for him part time and our paths didn’t cross often. If I had to work for him full time the last few months, I would have quit by week four.
Over the past few months, Abel and I had mastered the art of avoiding each other at all costs on the rare chance we were in the house at the same time. I couldn’t thank God enough that his mornings were spent doing team workouts while I prepped his meals for the day.
“You could offer me a million dollarsanda slice of pizza, and I still wouldn’t go on a date with the guy,” I grumbled, shoveling a large bite of cake into my mouth.
“Come on, Scarlett! He’s gorgeous. Have you seen his thighs? They’re huge!” She made a motion with her hands to show me the size like I hadn’t seen them every day for nearly a year. Not to mention the guy is six foot five and two hundred and sixty pounds. I’d venture to say everything about him was huge. “You can’t possibly tell me that you don’t want a slice of him.”
Was it possible to roll your eyes so hard that they fell out of their sockets?
“First of all, he’s my boss,” I started, holding up my pointer finger. Although there weren’t enough fingers and toes in the world to count the reasons I would never date Abel. “Second, he hates my cooking. And third, he hates me. I can assure you that I don’t want a ‘slice of him.’” My fingers formed mocking air quotes.
Mae walked across the counter and stood in front of me, placing her hands on my shoulders with a softened expression. “Scarlett, he doesn’t hate you or your cooking. If he did, he would have fired you by now.”
“Then explain the first two weeks I worked for him, huh?” My eyebrows rose an inch higher as I slumped my shoulders.
The first few days that I worked for Abel were a nightmare to end all nightmares. On my first day, he took one bite of the breakfast that I made for him before running off to “practice.” Unbeknownst to him, I saw Coach Sterling, our friend Lea’s dad, driving down the street two hours later. He stopped to chat and told me that the Matrix never practiced on Tuesdays.
